Further Reading

For some weeks now, Hancock has been signalling a change of direction for Whitehall's stance on all things fibre. It's understood that more details about the government's plans will come later this month during the Autumn Statement—the chancellor's first turn at the dispatch box, exactly five months on from the Brits' Brexit vote in June.

Hancock said at a conference in Westminster on Thursday that BT's taxpayer-funded rollout of largely fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) tech—which is served by a fibre-optic connection from the telco's backhaul network, via the local exchange, and then carried all the way to a streetside cabinet, where it is then delivered to the home via VDSL over a twisted pair of copper wires—had left "full fibre" on the back burner.

He told attendees at an annual parliament and Internet confab:

We need the right infrastructure. That means ubiquitous coverage, so no one is left out, and with sufficient capacity not only for today’s needs but in readiness for future change and demand.

We are making good progress. In the UK today, superfast broadband—measured at 24Mbps—is available to 91 percent of homes and businesses, and is on course to reach 95 percent at least by the end of next year. We rank first among the big European states and are top five on the Global Connectivity Index.

But in the push to drive out superfast part-fibre broadband we have not made progress on full fibre, which is currently supplied to only two per cent of premises. And make no mistake, the future is fibre. Rollout is happening all over the world and take-up is high. We are determined to see a full fibre future in Britain.

He added: "We must start work now on supplying ubiquitous 5G and fibre in the decade ahead."

Further Reading

Earlier on Thursday, BT reported its second quarter results to the City in which it said that its "FTTP [fibre-to-the-premises] footprint" was expanding. The company said that 320,000 properties across the UK had access to FTTP via Openreach's network. A figure that is dwarfed by BT's FTTC footprint, which stands at more than 25.5 million.